Speaker 1: Col Zone Media. On January twentieth, twenty twenty five, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was sworn in as president again. In one of
Speaker 1: his first acts, that very same day, he signed a
Speaker 1: proclamation that commuted the sentences of fourteen people who played
Speaker 1: key roles in orchestrating the January sixth, twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: riot at the United States Capitol. Everyone else, over fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred people who'd been charged with crimes and connection with
Speaker 1: the events that took place that day was pardoned. Most
Speaker 1: of them minority served their time, but the pardons restored
Speaker 1: their rights to do things like vote, serve on juries,
Speaker 1: and buy guns. Hundreds of defendants whose cases were still
Speaker 1: working their way through the legal system were suddenly relieved
Speaker 1: of that burden. Their cases just went away. And for
Speaker 1: about two hundred of those fifteen hundred people, that pardon
Speaker 1: came while they were still in federal custody serving sentences
Speaker 1: for the crimes they'd been found guilty of committing. Among
Speaker 1: those two hundred people freed with the stroke of the
Speaker 1: president's pen that day was Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio,
Speaker 1: and I think it was a big win for America,
Speaker 1: so America's back. Four months later, he was back in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. With a big announcement you want to take
Speaker 1: away free nothing better to do?
Speaker 2: Episode.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm sorry, that's not the announcement. That's DC Neighborhood
Speaker 1: Commissioner Patricia Aguino putting on a one woman protest against
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys during that press conference. This is Enrique Tarrio,
Speaker 1: Ethan Norden, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Real, and Dominic Bazolda versus
Speaker 1: the United States government. That's right. A get out of
Speaker 1: jail free card wasn't enough. They're suing for one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars. I'm Molly Conker, and this is weird little guys.
Speaker 1: This isn't a typical episode. I don't know what that
Speaker 1: actually even means any more, None of them really are.
Speaker 1: But this isn't the story of one weird little guy.
Speaker 1: It's more of a weird little situation and one that's ongoing.
Speaker 1: This lawsuit is very freshly filed, so there will be
Speaker 1: more to this story. But it's a story with a
Speaker 1: lot of weird little characters, weird little guys whose stories
Speaker 1: you may already be familiar with, and guys whose stories
Speaker 1: are intertwined with some we've already talked about, and others
Speaker 1: yet to come. That project I keep saying I'm working
Speaker 1: on is still on the back burner. I'll get to
Speaker 1: it eventually. You can probably hear in my voice that
Speaker 1: I'm a little under the weather. I was sick as
Speaker 1: a dog all week. I think I might have finally
Speaker 1: gotten COVID. I mean, God only knows, because those little
Speaker 1: testics don't really work anymore. In what difference does it
Speaker 1: really make? But I finally understand what you all have
Speaker 1: been talking about when you say you lost your sense
Speaker 1: of taste and smell. I mean I heard the word,
Speaker 1: and I understood intellectually what you meant by them. But
Speaker 1: it just doesn't sink in until you've got your tongue
Speaker 1: pressed onto a lemon and you feel absolutely fucking nothing.
Speaker 1: It's weird. So if that is what it was, I
Speaker 1: guess that makes me maybe the last person in the
Speaker 1: world to finally get it. I was starting to think
Speaker 1: maybe I really was God's favorite, you know, somehow immune
Speaker 1: to the worldwide plague. It's probably some kind of miracle
Speaker 1: that I managed to escape it for a full five years.
Speaker 1: I mean I was careful, right, I wear my mask
Speaker 1: in court, but I got tear gased at the Insurrection
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, I was shouldered to shoulder with
Speaker 1: America's most unvaccinated, masked and coughing in the haze. I
Speaker 1: spent some time in jail in twenty twenty. I was
Speaker 1: a committed nail bier until last year. I had my
Speaker 1: grubby little hands in my mouth sixteen times an hour
Speaker 1: during a global pandemic. I never got it. I did
Speaker 1: get really sick in the fall of twenty twenty, but
Speaker 1: according to the CBS drive through nasal swam, that was
Speaker 1: something else, just some disgusting virus I got as a
Speaker 1: souvenir from an anti vax rally where a man dressed
Speaker 1: as George Washington fell to his knees screaming about how
Speaker 1: he was America's greatest prayer warrior. But that's neither here
Speaker 1: nor there, point being. The virus comes for us all.
Speaker 1: I'm fine now, but I spent the better part of
Speaker 1: the week blowing my nose and complaining and not getting
Speaker 1: any work done. So here we are again. The lawsuit
Speaker 1: we're talking about today was filed on June sixth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. The plaintiffs are five proud boys Enrique Tario,
Speaker 1: Joe Biggs, Ethan Norden, Zachary Real, and Dominic Pazzola. All
Speaker 1: five were convicted by a jury of seditious conspiracy for
Speaker 1: their actions leading up to and during the breach of
Speaker 1: the Capitol Building on January sixth, twenty twenty one. Tario
Speaker 1: was not physically present in DC on the day of
Speaker 1: the riot, but he was central to planning the attack
Speaker 1: that ultimately transpired, and as the leader. Tario received the
Speaker 1: longest sentence of any January sixth defendant twenty two years.
Speaker 1: Ethan Nordean was sentenced to eighteen years, Joe Biggs got
Speaker 1: seventeen years, Zachary Reel got fifteen, and Dominic Pasola was
Speaker 1: sentenced to ten years in prison. All five were released
Speaker 1: after Trump's proclamation about the pardons, but of those five,
Speaker 1: only in Riquet Tario was actually pardoned. Real, Nordeen, Pasola,
Speaker 1: and Biggs did not receive pardons. They were on that
Speaker 1: shortlist of high profile rioters who only had their sentences commuted,
Speaker 1: and in this lawsuit they claimed their rights were vile. Obviously,
Speaker 1: but we'll get to that. The suit names as its
Speaker 1: defendants the United States of America, FBI, special Agent, Nicole
Speaker 1: Miller in her individual capacity, and John Doe's one through ten.
Speaker 1: These John Doe defendants are as yet unidentified employees of
Speaker 1: the FBI and DOJ. It's not really unusual at this
Speaker 1: stage of a suit like this to have these John
Speaker 1: or Jane Doe defendants. You can identify individual actors through
Speaker 1: the discovery process. The thing about the listed parties that
Speaker 1: did catch my eye, though, is that they filed the
Speaker 1: suit against those three named defendants. But in the section
Speaker 1: of the complaint where you specify who the parties at
Speaker 1: issue are, there are inexplicably a number of additional parties listed.
Speaker 1: Every lawsuit is different. The facts are going to be
Speaker 1: specific to the case, but the structure of a civil
Speaker 1: complaint is more or less always pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: There's a pretty bog standard structure and a lot of
Speaker 1: boilerplate language. There's no getting around it. You can't get
Speaker 1: fancy with it. There's a required format at the top.
Speaker 1: You have your little introduction, and then you list and
Speaker 1: describe the parties. You spell out the justification for jurisdiction
Speaker 1: and venue, and then comes the statement of facts, where
Speaker 1: you tell a little story about what happened and that's
Speaker 1: followed by your cause of action, why are you suing specifically?
Speaker 1: What legal theories are we operating off of? Here at
Speaker 1: the bottom you say what kind of damages you're trying
Speaker 1: to recover and whether or not you're asking for a
Speaker 1: jury trial, and then it's signed, dated, and filed. There's
Speaker 1: more to it than that. Get a lawyer if you're
Speaker 1: trying to write a lawsuit. This isn't a crash course
Speaker 1: on the federal rules of civil procedure or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but you get the idea. Everybody's operating off the same template,
Speaker 1: no matter how you're filling in the blankes here, we're
Speaker 1: using the same format. So in the section where you
Speaker 1: list the parties, we can all expect to see the parties,
Speaker 1: the people named in the lawsuit, the people or entities
Speaker 1: who are party to the case, the plaintiffs and the defendants,
Speaker 1: the people who are doing the suing, and the people
Speaker 1: being sued. And in this complaint, we do have those.
Speaker 1: We've got our five proud boy plaintiffs and the name
Speaker 1: defendants FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller and John Doe's one
Speaker 1: through ten. But for some reason, this section also lists
Speaker 1: a bunch of other people and organizations who are not
Speaker 1: parties to the lawsuit, like the FBI, the DOJ, former
Speaker 1: DC Metropolitan Police Lieutenant Shane LeMond, and a confidential informant
Speaker 1: that the suit calls Jen Low, despite readily of public
Speaker 1: information that Jen Loo is a pseudonym used by a
Speaker 1: woman whose real name is Jenny Lynn Salinis. And this
Speaker 1: section of the complaint also lists the Proud Boys as
Speaker 1: an organization, and it's described like this, The Proud Boys
Speaker 1: are an organization of patriotic political activists dedicated to preserving
Speaker 1: and promoting Western civilization in general and American society in particular.
Speaker 1: The Proud Boy's organization and its members have been subject
Speaker 1: to systemic harassment and mischaracterization by far left wing organizations
Speaker 1: such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti
Speaker 1: Defamation League, and politically biased state and federal prosecutors. I
Speaker 1: know it sounds like I'm nitpicking, and I am, but
Speaker 1: this section of the complaint is called parties. It's for
Speaker 1: listing the parties to the lawsuit, not editorializing about barious
Speaker 1: characters in the story that you're telling. It's sloppy and weird,
Speaker 1: but I think I know why, and I think it's
Speaker 1: the same reason that the complaint was filed in the
Speaker 1: federal court in the Middle District of Florida. See. At
Speaker 1: first I thought this was some kind of mistake. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the first time this particular attorney was connected
Speaker 1: to a lawsuit that was accidentally filed in the wrong
Speaker 1: district because Enrique Tario famously lives in Miami, which is
Speaker 1: not in the Middle District of Florida. But in justifying
Speaker 1: the chosen venue, the complaint notes that one of the
Speaker 1: plaintiffs does reside in the Middle District of Florida, though
Speaker 1: it misspells the word one and it doesn't specify which one.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, it's Joe Biggs. The Proud Boys
Speaker 1: owe the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in DC over
Speaker 1: three million dollars, and according to their most recent filings
Speaker 1: related to collecting that money, Joe Biggs lives in Belusha County.
Speaker 1: So that's fair. They can file in the Middle District
Speaker 1: of Florida, and venue shopping is normal. They could have
Speaker 1: chosen to file this in a handful of different federal
Speaker 1: court districts. The plaintiffs live all over the place. It's
Speaker 1: pretty normal. To choose the court you think will work
Speaker 1: out best for you for whatever reason. But I think
Speaker 1: they chose the Middle District of Florida because that's the
Speaker 1: only federal court district where their attorney is a member
Speaker 1: of the bar. I'll admit it. I was surprised when
Speaker 1: I saw who they'd gotten to represent them, and maybe
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been. He's like a bad penny. He
Speaker 1: just keeps turning up because they're at the very bottom
Speaker 1: of this very weird, twenty eight page complaint. There's the
Speaker 1: signature Augustus Invictus Esquire. He's come up a handful of
Speaker 1: times on this show, but it's never really the right
Speaker 1: time to tell you about him. A couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: in the episode about the lawsuit filed by Unite the
Speaker 1: Right protesters against the city of Charlottesville because the police
Speaker 1: weren't nice to them during their Nazi rally, he's the
Speaker 1: one who ghost wrote that lawsuit. Months ago. In that
Speaker 1: episode about those astro turfed marches against Sharia law, he
Speaker 1: was the organizer and headline speaker of the march in Orlando,
Speaker 1: And of course, in the episode in fall of last
Speaker 1: year about the Nazi torch March at Eva, he made
Speaker 1: an appearance as one of the marchers. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a long, strange story when the day finally comes
Speaker 1: for him to get his own episodes. But that day
Speaker 1: is not today. He is, among other things, a practicing attorney.
Speaker 1: On his website, he bills himself as the Attorney for
Speaker 1: the Damned. That site, which is ostensibly an advertisement for
Speaker 1: his legal services, is dominated by this gigantic screen shot
Speaker 1: of a Charlotte Observer article about his own acquittal in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two on a domestic violence charge, and on
Speaker 1: the site he proudly displays his own mug shot next
Speaker 1: to a professional headshot, juxtaposing these two images to show
Speaker 1: potential clients that sure, he's a professional attorney, but he's
Speaker 1: been where they are. He gets it, and he won,
Speaker 1: and you can too. Attorney for the Damned is a
Speaker 1: mantle that's been claimed by others before him, and applied
Speaker 1: to others still. It's the title of two separate books
Speaker 1: about a different Ohio born attorney, Clarence Darrow, who you
Speaker 1: may remember from The Scope's Monkey Trial. Another book with
Speaker 1: the same title was written by an attorney who provides
Speaker 1: state appointed services to those nemed criminally insane, and it
Speaker 1: was the title of an article about death row appeals
Speaker 1: in a nineteen eighty seven issue of the American Bar
Speaker 1: Association Journal. It's a phrase that gets tossed around, but
Speaker 1: in my mind, Augustus Invictus is the attorney for the
Speaker 1: damned in the same way Edgar Steele was like Invictus.
Speaker 1: It was Steele who gave himself the nickname, and in
Speaker 1: Steele's case, it was after he unsuccessfully defended the Aryan
Speaker 1: Nations in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Speaker 1: The plaintiffs in that case were members of a family
Speaker 1: who'd been shot at by the security guards at a
Speaker 1: Nazi compound in Idaho. Steele eventually died in prison in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. He was three years into a fifty year
Speaker 1: sentence for trying to hire someone to murder his wife
Speaker 1: with a pipe bomb. So what I mean is Augustus
Speaker 1: Invictus is a movement lawyer. He's not just there a lawyer,
Speaker 1: He's a fellow traveler. Back in twenty seventeen, when he
Speaker 1: was the headline speaker of the United the Right rally
Speaker 1: in Charlottesville, he was also a proud Boy Augustus Invictus,
Speaker 1: was second in command of a short lived group called
Speaker 1: the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights. It was a group
Speaker 1: within a group. It was a subset of Proud Boys
Speaker 1: who were especially committed to violence, and it was fully
Speaker 1: sanctioned by Proud Boys leadership. Shortly after the group was
Speaker 1: formed by Kyle Chapman in the spring of twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Proud Boy's magazine ran an article with the headline the
Speaker 1: kids are Alt Knights, and the subhead was based Stickman
Speaker 1: organizes official military arm of the Proud Boys. Based Stickman
Speaker 1: was the nickname that Kyle Chapman earned after beating a
Speaker 1: counter protester with a stick at a Trump rally in
Speaker 1: March of twenty seventeen. He wasn't even a Proud Boy
Speaker 1: at the time, but after the video of the assault
Speaker 1: went viral, he was recruited and joined. Broadboy's founder Gavin
Speaker 1: McGinnis took advantage of Chapman's viral Internet fame and had
Speaker 1: him on as a guest on his show several times
Speaker 1: in the weeks that followed. McGinnis even claims that he
Speaker 1: considered making Chapman in the president of the entire organization,
Speaker 1: but settled on endorsing Chapman's leadership of this new militant wing.
Speaker 1: In May of twenty seventeen, Chapman invited Augustus and Victus
Speaker 1: to speak at a free speech rally in Boston. Invictus,
Speaker 1: who had already lost one run for Senate and was
Speaker 1: about to announce another one, advocated for armed revolution over
Speaker 1: political activism, and he urged the crowd to take up
Speaker 1: arms because the Civil War had already started.
Speaker 3: When comte port, when political port, he's only ineffective, and
Speaker 3: speech and competitions in order rests me nothing.
Speaker 1: You have nothing left with four suborbs. If I let
Speaker 1: myself get going down this path, we'll be stuck on
Speaker 1: this tangent for months. But the point is they didn't
Speaker 1: hire Augustus and Victus because he was the finest lawyer
Speaker 1: money could buy. I'm fairly familiar with his work, and
Speaker 1: I would argue that he is very much not. They
Speaker 1: hired him because they have a history and they share
Speaker 1: a belief system, and he was very available. He's been
Speaker 1: struggling to make ends meet for the last few years.
Speaker 1: I think, in part because people are hesitant to hire
Speaker 1: an attorney who might not make it to their court date.
Speaker 1: He is at this very moment out on bond. He
Speaker 1: was convicted in October of twenty twenty four on the
Speaker 1: felony charge of burning an object with the intent to
Speaker 1: intimidate for his perticipation in that Nazi torch march at
Speaker 1: the University of Virginia back in twenty seventeen. In January
Speaker 1: of this year, a judge imposed a sentence of nine
Speaker 1: months in jail, but the execution of that sentence is
Speaker 1: currently on hold pending his appeal. It's not ideal for
Speaker 1: an attorney to be convicted of a crime. Can have
Speaker 1: serious consequences for their license and know. The rules vary
Speaker 1: from court to court. In the state of Florida, the
Speaker 1: rules are actually extremely clear. Attorneys must self report any
Speaker 1: felony conviction to the state bar within ten days of
Speaker 1: the conviction order being entered. They're then automatically suspended from
Speaker 1: the bar, and the rules very specifically say that this
Speaker 1: suspension does remain in effect during any appeals process for
Speaker 1: the criminal conviction. An attorney convicted of a felony can
Speaker 1: challenge their suspension from the bar. It is by order
Speaker 1: of the Florida Supreme Court automatic. Those are the rules.
Speaker 1: They're pretty clear, but they don't seem to have been
Speaker 1: applied here. I have no explanation for this. At a
Speaker 1: bond hearing earlier this year, Invictus's criminal defense attorney offered
Speaker 1: a vague assertion that his client had self reported the
Speaker 1: conviction to the Florida State Bar as required, but says
Speaker 1: they told him that they wouldn't make any determination about
Speaker 1: suspending his license or disbarring him until after the appeal
Speaker 1: had concluded. That's what his attorney said. That's all I
Speaker 1: can tell you. That's not consistent with the rules as
Speaker 1: they're written, and there's no documentation I can find about
Speaker 1: this either way. But if you take them at their
Speaker 1: word that the Florida Bar said it's okay for him
Speaker 1: to keep practicing law in a Florida state court, I
Speaker 1: can accept that Florida's a weird place. But every jurisdiction
Speaker 1: where an attorney practices law has its own rules, and
Speaker 1: I did look up the local rules in the Middle
Speaker 1: District of Florida. That's the only federal court aside from
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court where Invictus is a member of
Speaker 1: the bar, and in the Middle District of Florida local
Speaker 1: rule two point zero four B states that any attorney
Speaker 1: admitted to practice in the district must report any felony
Speaker 1: conviction within fourteen days. Suspension from the bar is automatic.
Speaker 1: Attorneys in this position can file a petition to stay
Speaker 1: the automatic suspension, and that petition has to be heard
Speaker 1: by a judge. I think if it came before a judge,
Speaker 1: I would be able to find evidence that this happened,
Speaker 1: and I can't. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence.
Speaker 1: I get that it's possible that it happened, but I
Speaker 1: can't find anything, and I don't know why he would
Speaker 1: be allowed to continue to practice law under these conditions.
Speaker 1: It's not clear to me if the proud boy's lawyer
Speaker 1: is even going to be allowed to appear in court
Speaker 1: on this case. It's even more unclear what anyone's plan
Speaker 1: is if their lawyer is unexpectedly required to report to jail.
Speaker 1: His current situation is fluid. The judge who granted him
Speaker 1: his appeal bond could decide at any time that he's
Speaker 1: changed his mind and he's going to impose the sentence
Speaker 1: next week. When Enrique Tarrio spoke to a reporter from
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal about this lawsuit, He said that
Speaker 1: they'd had no trouble at all finding an attorney to
Speaker 1: take the case, saying, quote, we were able to shop,
Speaker 1: and he claims he spoke to more than a dozen
Speaker 1: law firms, adding I believe attorneys are going to do
Speaker 1: backflips trying to get JA sixers on board with a
Speaker 1: lot of lawsuits. And if this suit proved successful, that
Speaker 1: may be true down the line, but I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it's been true in his experience, because if he had
Speaker 1: the pick of the litter, I don't think he would
Speaker 1: have picked Augustus and Victus. And the press conference he
Speaker 1: held to announce filing this suit last week wasn't actually
Speaker 1: the first one. Back in February of this year, four
Speaker 1: months before the suit was actually filed, Trio held a
Speaker 1: press conference outside the Capitol Building.
Speaker 2: Let me be clear, I'm not talking about violent retribution.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about something much more powerful, accountability and the
Speaker 1: rule of law.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: That is why today we are announcing a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: the DOJ. And at that press conference back in February,
Speaker 1: Trio said they'd already raised tons of money for their
Speaker 1: legal defense, all in cryptocurrency. Believe it or not, And
Speaker 1: he also said they already had a lawyer lined up,
Speaker 1: everything was ready to go and they were about to file.
Speaker 1: My question, yet, who exactly is suing for the plaintiffs?
Speaker 3: Do you have a lawyer?
Speaker 2: We do have a lawyer. We'll be announcing that in
Speaker 2: the coming weeks, but right now it's the five of
Speaker 2: us that are going to be suing the DJ.
Speaker 1: Just a few minutes after that press conference ended, Enrique
Speaker 1: Tarrio was arrested for simple assault after striking the outstretched
Speaker 1: arm of a woman holding up her cell phone to
Speaker 1: take a video of him, But prosecutors ultimately declined to
Speaker 1: pursue the case and the lawsuits still didn't materialize. And
Speaker 1: then last month, on May third, twenty five, Enrique Tarrio
Speaker 1: took his mom out to dinner. If you knew anything
Speaker 1: about Enrique Tarrio, you know he's fiercely loyal to his mother,
Speaker 1: Zuni du Artes. Kind of a mama's boy, and normally
Speaker 1: I would leave a guy's mom out of this, but
Speaker 1: Tario's mother has been deeply involved in her son's political
Speaker 1: activities for years. It's her name on the incorporation paperwork
Speaker 1: for the business that has processed online payments for Proud
Speaker 1: Boys merchandise for years, and since the events of January sixth,
Speaker 1: she's been a vocal supporter of her son and his
Speaker 1: co defendants. So last month, they're out to dinner, and
Speaker 1: they're out to dinner at a rather particular restaurant. They
Speaker 1: were invited to dine at mar A Lago by some
Speaker 1: unnamed member of the club, and during dinner that evening,
Speaker 1: this unnamed friend of theirs introduced them to the President
Speaker 1: of the United States as he was crossing the patio
Speaker 1: where they were eating. That night, Tarrio tweeted, and I
Speaker 1: just had a great conversation with Potus. He called me
Speaker 1: and my mother over while we were at dinner and
Speaker 1: said he was sorry for what Joe Biden did to
Speaker 1: all j sixers. He knew the hardships me and my
Speaker 1: family face for three long years. He knew how many
Speaker 1: times they moved me, and he said he's working on
Speaker 1: making things right. I thanked him for giving me my
Speaker 1: life back. He replied with I love you guys. To
Speaker 1: all the Jay sixers. He wanted me to send y'all
Speaker 1: a message, He said, thank you working to make things right.
Speaker 1: What could that possibly mean? Trio's already been pardoned. Trump
Speaker 1: pardoned him. He's free, his conviction is wiped away. He's
Speaker 1: technically still a convicted felon for a twenty thirteen conviction
Speaker 1: for his role in a scheme to resell a million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of stolen diabetic test strips. But that's not
Speaker 1: what Trump meant. I mean, technically, Trump could pardon him
Speaker 1: for that too. It was a federal crime. But that's
Speaker 1: not it. That's not what he means. This Saturday night
Speaker 1: meeting on the patio at Mar A Lago was just
Speaker 1: a day after the announcement that the administration was prepared
Speaker 1: to settle the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate
Speaker 1: of Ashley Babbitt. Ashley Babbitt was the January sixth rioter
Speaker 1: who was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer
Speaker 1: as she was attempting to climb through a broken window
Speaker 1: during the assault on the Capitol building. In a sane world,
Speaker 1: one with normal rules, I don't think that lawsuit had legs.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe maybe they could have gotten it in
Speaker 1: front of a jury, but I don't think that jury
Speaker 1: would have awarded her family any money settling it was
Speaker 1: a choice it was a message. It was, perhaps in
Speaker 1: the minds of those who think the rioters did nothing wrong,
Speaker 1: an attempt to make it right. The government is going
Speaker 1: to pay out nearly five million dollars to Babbitt's family.
Speaker 1: Her death is tragic. You may not think so, but
Speaker 1: I'll never be happy to see someone get shot and
Speaker 1: killed by a police officer. But let's be so honest.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a wrongful death. I hate to see a
Speaker 1: cop fire his gun. I never want to see that,
Speaker 1: but if it's gonna happen, I think this is one
Speaker 1: of those moments where you kind of have to admit
Speaker 1: it made sense in the moment. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: hordes of wild eyed conspiracy theorists and they directed a
Speaker 1: gallows outside and now they're smashing through the windows get in.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit was never a winner, but they settled, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly here's a cavalcade of insurrectionist at the court's
Speaker 1: doorstep with their hands held out. For one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars and for what. According to the complaint, their rights
Speaker 1: were violated, specifically their fourth, fifth and sixth Amendment rights.
Speaker 1: They're also bringing a claim of malicious prosecution. We'll take
Speaker 1: these one at a time. Briefly, the first count is
Speaker 1: the Fourth Amendment violations. That's the one that protects you
Speaker 1: from unreasonable searches and seizures, the one that means a
Speaker 1: cop has to get a warrant to search your stuff.
Speaker 1: Good amendment. I'm a big fan. This one's a little
Speaker 1: all over the place. There is a rather serious allegation
Speaker 1: here that the government violated attorney client privilege by illegally
Speaker 1: listening in on phone calls and reading text messages between
Speaker 1: the criminal defendants and their attorneys during the course of
Speaker 1: the investigation and trial. If that happened, that's very serious.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to weigh on on whether it did
Speaker 1: happen in this case, but it's something that can and
Speaker 1: does happen, and it would absolutely be a gross violation
Speaker 1: of their rights if the government was listening in when
Speaker 1: they were having privileged conversations with their lawyers about their
Speaker 1: criminal case. If there's evidence that that happened, that should
Speaker 1: get aired out in court and heard by a jury.
Speaker 1: The other claims made here are something else. The opening
Speaker 1: allegation under this count reads, quote, first, the defendants had
Speaker 1: no probable cause to investigate or prosecute the plaintiffs. The
Speaker 1: defendants were aware that no evidence supported the allegations and
Speaker 1: had to use underhanded and unconstitutional methods in order to
Speaker 1: convict the plaintiffs. Oh, no probabill cause at all, Like
Speaker 1: there was not any reason to suspect that maybe any
Speaker 1: one of them had potentially committed some kind of crime, Like,
Speaker 1: for example, what if there was video footage of one
Speaker 1: of them ripping a riot shield out of a police
Speaker 1: officer's hands and then using that riot shield to break
Speaker 1: a window, then becoming the first rioter to physically breach
Speaker 1: the United States Capitol Building. I don't know what if
Speaker 1: there was something like that. No probabill cause. Some of
Speaker 1: the other alleged Fourth Amendment violations here are quote deliberately
Speaker 1: misrepresenting the context, attribution, and content of the text communications
Speaker 1: in order to create the implication of plaintiffs guilt. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that has anything to do with the Fourth Amendment.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could argue that the text messages themselves
Speaker 1: were improperly obtained. That's a Fourth Amendment issue, But the
Speaker 1: way a prosecutor characterizes the evidence when it's being presented,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really implicate the Fourth Amendment. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not a lawyer. The second count is
Speaker 1: a Fifth Amendment violation. They claim they were denied their
Speaker 1: right to due process under the law because the law
Speaker 1: as it was applied here was so vague that a
Speaker 1: reasonable person would have no way of knowing they were
Speaker 1: breaking it. Quote, because you can be convicted for conspiracy
Speaker 1: with people over whom you have no authority and to
Speaker 1: whom you gave no orders. Rather, mere statements of approval, agreement,
Speaker 1: and enthusiasm are apparently enough to form a criminal conspiracy,
Speaker 1: provided the points of view are offensive enough to the
Speaker 1: employees of the Federal Breau of Investigation and the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, no matter how attenuated from criminal action they
Speaker 1: may have been. If I ever do get a whole
Speaker 1: series of episodes out of Augustus and Victus, there will
Speaker 1: probably be an hour long rant about his steadfast refusal
Speaker 1: to accept the legal definition of conspiracy. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been through this in his work several times, so
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let it go for now. I didn't
Speaker 1: bother to dig into the specifics of the prosecution's theory
Speaker 1: of this case, but one of the real stumbling blocks
Speaker 1: and having this conversation with anyone is that most people
Speaker 1: don't really understand what it means to be part of
Speaker 1: a criminal conspiracy. You don't have to go to a
Speaker 1: special meeting where every single person involved gets together and
Speaker 1: discusses a specific plan and then everyone agrees to specifically
Speaker 1: carry out that plan. It's way more nebulous than that,
Speaker 1: in a way that is actually kind of scary, but
Speaker 1: it's most basic. It just means that two or more
Speaker 1: people agree to do something unlawful. They don't have to
Speaker 1: even succeed at doing it. They just have to make
Speaker 1: some concrete action in that direction. And not everyone involved
Speaker 1: needs to know everyone else, and not everyone involved needs
Speaker 1: to know the whole plan. So if this core group
Speaker 1: of conspirators planned to, I don't know, do something like
Speaker 1: break into the Capitol building to stop the certification of
Speaker 1: the election, and then they took some kind of concrete
Speaker 1: steps towards making that happen, like flying to DC and
Speaker 1: then assembling in a group and then marching towards the
Speaker 1: Capitol and then breaking into it, that's a conspiracy. But
Speaker 1: when Dominic Pazzola and Ethan Norden crawled through that broken
Speaker 1: window and breached the Capitol Building and then encouraged the
Speaker 1: crowd behind them to come with them. That could be two.
Speaker 1: The planning doesn't have to take place at a second
Speaker 1: location a week beforehand. It can take place right there.
Speaker 1: And the thing about a conspiracy is that once it's
Speaker 1: in motion, you're on the hook for more than just
Speaker 1: your own actions, and more than just the actions you
Speaker 1: think you agreed to ahead of time. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of nitty gritty here about what exactly is alleged
Speaker 1: by the government what was argued at trial. But my
Speaker 1: guess is this claim in the lawsuit rests squarely on
Speaker 1: a personal disagreement with what is really just the legal
Speaker 1: definition of a criminal conspiracy. The third claim is that
Speaker 1: the government violated their sixth Amendment right now to a
Speaker 1: fair trial. It mostly just copies and paste those same
Speaker 1: allegations that the government illegally monitored privileged attorney client communication,
Speaker 1: but it also claims that the government intimidated a key
Speaker 1: defense witness and frightened him out of testifying at trial.
Speaker 1: The witness in question is former DC Police lieutenant Shane Lamond.
Speaker 1: He's a former police lieutenant because he was sentenced last
Speaker 1: week to eighteen months in prison for obstruction of justice
Speaker 1: and making false statements, charges that arose out of his
Speaker 1: close friendship with Enrique Tario. In the months leading up
Speaker 1: to January sixth, he'd been illegally leaking information to Tario
Speaker 1: about the police investigation into him. In the weeks before
Speaker 1: January sixth, the DC police were investigating an incident that
Speaker 1: took place at a Proud Boy march in d C
Speaker 1: in December of twenty twenty. The group tore a Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter banner off of a Black church and then
Speaker 1: burned it in the street. That church now owns the
Speaker 1: Proud Boy's trademark, and the Proud Boys owe the church
Speaker 1: three million dollars. But Tarrio's lawsuit alleges that the FBI
Speaker 1: threatened Lamont with obstruction charges if he were to go
Speaker 1: through with his plan to testify for the defense in
Speaker 1: Tario's seditious conspiracy trial, and the suit alleges that this
Speaker 1: caused Lamont to change his mind about testifying. I don't
Speaker 1: actually have any doubt that the FBI had a conversation
Speaker 1: with Shane Lamond. They were investigating him, and he was
Speaker 1: charged and convicted of that crime. It wasn't a threat
Speaker 1: They were conducting an investigation. Whether or not that conversation
Speaker 1: also functioned to some degree as an intentional witness intimidation
Speaker 1: tactic is I don't know. That's not the most likely explanation.
Speaker 1: It would be very hard to prove, and it's just
Speaker 1: not a interesting to me. The fourth and final count
Speaker 1: of the complaint is malicious prosecution, and this threw me
Speaker 1: for a loop. Quote the defendants prosecuted the plaintiffs despite
Speaker 1: knowing that the plaintiffs neither participated in the events of
Speaker 1: January sixth, nor organized and coordinated them. Indeed, they had
Speaker 1: to invent a whole new legal theory, stack the jury,
Speaker 1: reach attorney client communications, and embed a paid government informant
Speaker 1: in order to convict them. I'm stry back up for
Speaker 1: a second. What did that say that the government knew
Speaker 1: that they didn't participate in the events of January sixth.
Speaker 1: They didn't even participate. It's not just that they didn't
Speaker 1: plan or organize it, and it wasn't a seditious conspiracy.
Speaker 1: They didn't even participate. That's remarkable. It goes on the
Speaker 1: defendants made, influenced, and or participated in the decision to
Speaker 1: prosecute the plaintiffs for which prosecution there was no probable cause,
Speaker 1: and which caused the plaintiff to suffer a deprivation of liberty.
Speaker 1: The defendant's misconduct directly resulted in the unlawful prosecution and
Speaker 1: continued deprivation of the plaintiff's liberty in violation of their
Speaker 1: constitutional rights, no probable cause, none at all. The problem
Speaker 1: with this theory is it can't be malicious prosecution if
Speaker 1: you're guilty. It's straight up can't. It's not gray, there's
Speaker 1: no but there's no exception. That's not how it works.
Speaker 1: It's not malicious prosecution if you were guilty of the crime,
Speaker 1: and they know that, they even put the definition right
Speaker 1: in there quote. To make out a claim for malicious
Speaker 1: pri section, a plaintiff generally must show three things. One
Speaker 1: that the criminal proceeding was initiated or continued by the
Speaker 1: defendant without probable cause, two that the defendant instituted the
Speaker 1: proceeding maliciously, and three that the proceedings have terminated in
Speaker 1: favor of the accused. So, if, for example, some politically
Speaker 1: motivated prosecutor charged you with a totally fake, made up
Speaker 1: crime that you didn't do, just to punish you because
Speaker 1: he didn't like you. But the jury saw through it
Speaker 1: and they acquitted you. You could sue for malicious prosecution.
Speaker 1: What he did was malicious, unfounded, and the proceedings terminated
Speaker 1: in your favor, meaning you were not convicted. But that's
Speaker 1: not what happened here. They were lawfully legally convicted by
Speaker 1: This isn't a criminal appeal, right, They're not appealing the
Speaker 1: conviction on the basis of improprieties at trial. This is
Speaker 1: a civil lawsuit. I think they're choosing to interpret terminated
Speaker 1: in favor of the accused to mean the pardon, that
Speaker 1: the pardon was exonerative, and that the pardon was part
Speaker 1: of the criminal process, thus ending it in their favor.
Speaker 1: I'd always had the general impression that accepting a pardon
Speaker 1: required admitting guilt, and I think that is a common belief,
Speaker 1: but it might not be true. A nineteen fifteen Supreme
Speaker 1: Court case is generally understood to imply that, but not
Speaker 1: everyone agrees, and the most recent test of that theory
Speaker 1: was a twenty nineteen case in the Tenth Circuit Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals that held that it could convicted warp criminal
Speaker 1: wasn't admitting he did it when he accepted President Trump's pardon,
Speaker 1: so it may be a gray area. I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: doing a minisode on those two cases, but don't help
Speaker 1: me to it, and I didn't have time this week.
Speaker 1: But I do have a plan to get a real
Speaker 1: lawyer on the phone to answer some of our burning
Speaker 1: questions about this particular legal quagmire. So I'm not a lawyer,
Speaker 1: but for what it's worth. The current version of the
Speaker 1: Frequently Asked Questions on the Department of Justice's web page
Speaker 1: for the Office of the Pardon Attorney says this, a
Speaker 1: pardon is an expression of the President's forgiveness and can
Speaker 1: be granted in recognition of the applicant's acceptance of responsibility
Speaker 1: for the crime and establish good conduct for a significant
Speaker 1: period of time after a conviction or completion of sentence.
Speaker 1: It does not dignify innocence. So when the president pardons you,
Speaker 1: it just wipes out the negative effects of the conviction. Right,
Speaker 1: So you are no longer convicted of that crime. You
Speaker 1: can vote again, you can get guns again, you can
Speaker 1: serve on a jury again. You're no longer a convicted felon.
Speaker 1: If you're still in jail, you come out of jail.
Speaker 1: If you still owe restitution. You don't owe any more restitution,
Speaker 1: but you can't claw back restitution you already paid. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean the president is saying this crime never happened.
Speaker 1: It just means you no longer have consequences for this crime.
Speaker 1: But like I said, there are varying interpretations of whether
Speaker 1: or not the act of accepting the pardon means that
Speaker 1: you are admitting guilt. I don't think anyone interprets pardons
Speaker 1: to be exonerations, but I don't know. I guess there's
Speaker 1: something for everyone out there. And I was really going
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole here reading legal journal articles about
Speaker 1: the particulars on the issue when I realized it doesn't
Speaker 1: even matter. It doesn't matter if a pardon means you're
Speaker 1: innocent or you're guilty. Because of the five plaintiffs in
Speaker 1: this lawsuit, only one of them was pardoned, and Riekie
Speaker 1: Tario received a full presidential pardon for his January sixth convictions,
Speaker 1: but the other four didn't. They only had their sentences commuted.
Speaker 1: So even if we're on board for this legal theory
Speaker 1: that the pardon made in Rike Tario innocent and thus
Speaker 1: enables him to sue for malicious prosecution. The other four can't.
Speaker 1: They're still guilty, their convictions still stand. They haven't been pardoned.
Speaker 1: And I guess that fatal flaw on the plan must
Speaker 1: have occurred to their lawyer too, because shortly before filing
Speaker 1: the lawsuit, those four plaintiffs Bigs Nordine, Pazola, and Real
Speaker 1: all filed applications for full pardons. Those applications, which the
Speaker 1: lawsuit claims are currently being considered, are inexplicably attached as
Speaker 1: an exhibit to the complaint in full, unredacted. It has addresses,
Speaker 1: phone numbers, email addresses, names of family members, including ex
Speaker 1: wives and minor children. It has their god damn social
Speaker 1: Security numbers. It's a genuinely shocking and dangerous act of
Speaker 1: negligence on the part of their attorney. But aside from
Speaker 1: accidentally exposing four of his clients to identity theft, the
Speaker 1: documents are pretty interesting. One of the pages of the
Speaker 1: application asks the applicant to briefly describe the offense they
Speaker 1: were convicted of, and under that it asks do you
Speaker 1: accept responsibility for your conduct? Explain why or why not?
Speaker 1: And to that question, Ethan Norden wrote, it would be
Speaker 1: untrue for me to accept responsibility for what I did
Speaker 1: not do and really not possible. Dominic Pozzola conceded that
Speaker 1: he may be guilty of trespassing, but when it comes
Speaker 1: to the felonies, I feel as though the prosecution of
Speaker 1: the felony charges were one hundred percent politically motivated. Zachary
Speaker 1: Real wrote, I never denied that I thought the election
Speaker 1: was stolen. I still believe that the election was stolen.
Speaker 1: But I am happy to see President Trump is back
Speaker 1: in office and looking forward to being a productive member
Speaker 1: of society again. This pardon will help with that. That
Speaker 1: was one sentence. It's just the one period at the
Speaker 1: end of that for Zachary Reel, and both President and
Speaker 1: member are spelled wrong. You know, no hate to the
Speaker 1: man if he can't spell, but this is a pretty
Speaker 1: important document. Maybe get somebody to help you. Joe Biggs's
Speaker 1: essay questions were apparently written on a separate sheet of paper,
Speaker 1: which is not included. I do hope they remember to
Speaker 1: include the attachments when they sent that to the pardon attorney.
Speaker 1: That would be so sloppy. On his application, Zachary Real
Speaker 1: notes that he's currently living off of his savings and
Speaker 1: he really hopes he's not going to have to sell
Speaker 1: his truth social stock to make ends meet. This case
Speaker 1: was only just filed on Friday, June sixth, so as
Speaker 1: I'm writing and recording this, no real time has passed
Speaker 1: for any work to have been done on the case.
Speaker 1: The government hasn't filed anything in response, and there's been
Speaker 1: no public comment from anyone involved, aside from Tario himself.
Speaker 1: We'll just have to wait and see what happens. I
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about my own experiences on January
Speaker 1: sixth on an episode a few months ago, the episode
Speaker 1: about Matthew Huddle, the January sixth defendant who was shot
Speaker 1: and killed during a traffic stop just days after receiving
Speaker 1: his pardon. But surprisingly, writing this episode didn't really call
Speaker 1: to mind my own memories of that day. It did
Speaker 1: remind me of another day, though it was a lifetime ago.
Speaker 1: But do you remember September twenty ninth, twenty twenty. I
Speaker 1: do the days run together when you work from home,
Speaker 1: but I remember the whole day that day because I
Speaker 1: had a very weird day. I had to get up
Speaker 1: early and drive an hour to Richmond to go to court.
Speaker 1: I'd been arrested earlier in the summer while covering the
Speaker 1: protests against police brutality. It was a bullshit charge and
Speaker 1: they knew it. But that doesn't really matter. We don't
Speaker 1: have to get into it. And when I got to
Speaker 1: court that morning, they told me that they were going
Speaker 1: to drop my charge and they handed me something to sign.
Speaker 1: You know, to standard procedure, sign this will dismiss your case.
Speaker 1: Never sign anything you haven't read, because I read the
Speaker 1: form and it said that by signing it, I was
Speaker 1: admitting that I was guilty of a crime, and they're
Speaker 1: still dismissing the charge. I wasn't going to be convicted
Speaker 1: of it, but I was putting on paper that I
Speaker 1: did it, which I didn't, So I balked. They backed down,
Speaker 1: and I didn't sign it. My charge got dropped. Everything
Speaker 1: ended happily. It took another few months to regain full
Speaker 1: use and sensation of my left hand because they'd left
Speaker 1: me handcuffed in a folding chair in the jail parking
Speaker 1: garage for so long back in July. But that's not
Speaker 1: the point of the story, no, because my clearest memory
Speaker 1: of September twenty ninth, twenty twenty, was later that evening
Speaker 1: I was sitting on a friend's couch watching TV, and
Speaker 1: I nearly choked to death on my seltzer and I
Speaker 1: heard this.
Speaker 3: Are you willing tonight to condemn white subpremises and militia
Speaker 3: groups and to say that they need to stand down
Speaker 3: and not add to the violence in a number of
Speaker 3: these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we've
Speaker 3: seen in Portland.
Speaker 1: Do it?
Speaker 3: Ay?
Speaker 2: I would say, almost everything I see is from the
Speaker 2: left wing, not from the right wing.
Speaker 3: What do you do.
Speaker 2: I'm willing to do anything.
Speaker 3: I want to see peace and do it, sir?
Speaker 1: Do it? Say it? Do you want to call them?
Speaker 2: What do you want to call them? Give me a name,
Speaker 2: give me a stand back and stand by. But I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what. I'll tell you what. Somebody's got to
Speaker 2: do something about antifa and the left.
Speaker 1: Stand back and stand by. Somebody's got to do something
Speaker 1: about the left. Won't someone rid me of these troublesome
Speaker 1: anti fascists?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I would love to know what the president of the
Speaker 1: United States and the leader of the fascist street gang
Speaker 1: that tried to steal an election for him, talked about
Speaker 1: for ten minutes on the patio of the President's private
Speaker 1: club last month, I really would. I don't think we
Speaker 1: ever will. But just a few weeks after that conversation,
Speaker 1: there's Enrique Tarrio boldly asking for one hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: from the United States government. I don't think he'll get
Speaker 1: a hundred million, but I do believe he's going to
Speaker 1: get a payout. I'm not the only one who sees
Speaker 1: that on the horizon. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted a news
Speaker 1: story about the lawsuit, adding, expect a fixed sue and
Speaker 1: settle outcome with MAGA do OJ taxpayer resources to political
Speaker 1: allies is their specialty. Now, this is pure speculation. This
Speaker 1: is my own personal opinion. It's not an assertion of fact.
Speaker 1: You're not facing this on anything concrete, and it has
Speaker 1: let me be clear my opinion. I don't think this
Speaker 1: is a real lawsuit. I mean, it's filed in a
Speaker 1: real court. It mostly conforms to the federal rules of
Speaker 1: civil procedure. It looks like a lawsuit. It quacks like
Speaker 1: a duck, you know, but it kind of feels like
Speaker 1: everyone involved knows that this doesn't need to hold up.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to have a strong legal foundation. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that the guy they hired, has never won
Speaker 1: a case and might be in jail by the time
Speaker 1: anyone's trying to argue emotion. It doesn't need to convince
Speaker 1: a jury. It's not really a lawsuit. It's an invitation.
Speaker 1: It's an outstretched hand waiting to be warmly clasped to
Speaker 1: close a handshake deal. It opens the door for Trump
Speaker 1: to make good on his promise to make things right.
Speaker 1: They can just settle and write everybody a big fat check.
Speaker 1: The Proud Boys are standing back and standing by, and
Speaker 1: they might be about to get very, very rich. Weird
Speaker 1: Little Guys is a production of Kolsae Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: It's research, written, and recorded by me Molly Conger. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Sophie Lettterman and Robert Evans. The show
Speaker 1: is edited by the wildly town that Lardy Gaiken. The
Speaker 1: theme music was composed by Brad Dickard. You can email
Speaker 1: me at Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I will definitely read it, but I probably won't answer it.
Speaker 1: It's nothing personal. You can exchange conspiracy theories about the
Speaker 1: show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit.
Speaker 1: Just don't post anything that's going to make you one
Speaker 1: of my work little guys.